Lynwood Rotary Meeting Update 05.18.2017

 

Before the main presentation, in the absence of Club President Ramon Rodriguez, Incoming President Joe Wang, led the meeting.  Joe Wang talked about the first evening meeting next week that will be held in the Senior Center on Thursday, May 25 from 6pm to 7:30 pm. It was noted that the Senior Center has a kitchen and also audio-visual facilities.  Joe encouraged everyone to bring at least one guest. Daniel introduced a regular visitor, Fabian Valencia, who is head of Lost Angels, a community arts group that meets weekly at the VFW Facility in South Gate.  Fabian again talked about the arts-oriented activities offered through Lost Angels. 

 

Another event for Lynwood Rotary members is the American Cancer Relay for Life Run to be held in South Gate Park for a 24 hour period, Jul 15 – 16.  Last year the event was held in the Lynwood Park across the street and Lulu organized club participation, which included half of the Lynwood Club members. Ms. Esperanza Galvan Trejo from the South Gate Rotary, passed out a Sponsorship Commitment Form and encouraged the Lynwood Club to make a donation which is due by June 1.  Daniel stated that he hoped that Lulu can again organize the Lynwood club's participation. 

 

Daniel mentioned that he attended  a Wednesday May 17 event 2pm -4pm at St. Francis Medical Center Auditorium  to participate in a Healthy Lynwood Partnership meeting with staff from LA County Dept. of Public Health and other community members, including Mark Flores, who represented the City of Lynwood.  The next meeting will be in mid to late June.  Daniel encouraged that one other Lynwood Rotary member attend these meetings.

 

There will be the Roosevelt Elementary School Act Club Annual Banquet in the large room of Bateman Hall on Tues from 5pm to 8pm, May 30.  Daniel urged that the Lynwood Club attend with at least one table of adults for this event.

 

Priscilla Segura started her presentation by explaining that the Director of the District 4, for the water district, Leticia Vasquez, had a another event to attend.  Priscilla's power point presentation included very interesting graphics of the changing weather patterns in the state, as well as interesting photos of the largest dam in the state in California at Oroville. She started with graphics showing that the central basin formed in 1952 serves 24 cities in the Southeastern portion of LA County.   In addition to the five elected directors, there are now 3 more directors who are appointed.   About ½ of the water in the region is from ground water, and the other half from imported water from the Colorado River thru the facilities of the Metropolitan Water District, which receives this water and then sells it to the municipal water district which in sells the water to its member cities. 

 

Changes in the drought conditions throughout the state this year were shown in color maps with gradual diminished accumulated drought as the winter season progressed this year throughout the  state.  The increasing use of recycled water was illustrated showing the treatment processing from the condition of the water as raw sewage to the secondary and tertiary treatment levels of the recycled water. (The secondary treatment includes use of organisms to eat the bacteria.) Tertiary treated water is now used for irrigation in many parks and public landscaping, including in part of Lynwood.  Flowing in lavender colored pipes, the water is not supposed to be used for drinking, although drinking a little would not make one sick, but it does have some chemicals that are harmful if consumed routinely.

Photographs of Oroville Dam along the Feather River in Northern California showed the water level at its lowest level ever before the seasonal rains started after the 5 year drought, and then photographs of the water level when the dam was full this year; and shown were photos of the spillway before and in use and photos of the recent damage from the flooding after the emergency use of the spillway.

 

Ways to save water were shown, to include use of drought tolerant plants in landscaping.  A question was asked which of six plants shown in a photo was drought tolerant.  One of the six plants was a cactus.  The answer was that all six plants are low water use plants even though only the cactus looks drought tolerant.  So there are many plants to choose from and still conserve water.   Also, water saving appliances in the home will save a lot of water.  For example, new watering saving toilets only use about 1.5 gallons per flush, compared to older toilets which use 3 gallons per flush.

 

Priscilla described the free trips that can be taken to observe water facilities along the Colorado River and in Northern California.  Daniel mentioned that he attended one of these weekend trips and highly recommended the trip, both from the information received and because it was a fun thing to do and to interact with others on the trip. Priscilla suggested that she return for another presentation and Daniel suggested next winter would be a good time.

 

        Daniel Miller / Omar Franco / Rowland Becerra